


Restorative

by gorgona_chingona



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Gap Filler, Gen, Season/Series 02, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 13:49:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3449462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgona_chingona/pseuds/gorgona_chingona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abbie is searching for a way to restore her petrified ancestor to life as her partnership with Ichabod is falling into disrepair. Set in the gaps between 2.11 The Akeda through 2.18 Tempus Fugit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restorative

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is set during the six weeks that elapsed between the events of 2.11 The Akeda and 2.12 Paradise Lost.

Abbie drove towards the woods at the end of her shift, the sun well past the yard-arm but not yet dusk. These few weeks of quietude, of normalcy, were a welcome change. Now that she had some space to think, the last few months had taken their toll. With all the death and ghouls and reanimated high school friends, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Abbie now slept with a night light, something she hadn’t done since she was six. During the daylight hours, she felt foolish for leaving it on, told herself nothing was coming to steal her away in the night. But as she settled down for bed, that lamp on her side table was a sentry at her gate. When she snapped awake with her tongue dry as paper and her heart hammering hard in her clammy chest, she turned to face the lamp like a sailor spotting a lighthouse in a storm. She felt grateful that Jenny had agreed to the conservatorship last year; having a roomie was more fun than she remembered. Talking over hot chocolate when they both woke up at 3am with cold sweats was not the ideal sister bonding time, but late-night movies and lunchtime gun maintenance picked up the slack. They got on each other’s nerves from time to time but they found solace in knowing that only a bedroom wall separated them now instead of resentment and regret.

As she braked for a turn-off, she felt a pang of guilt for not cluing Jenny into her errand. The tires of her truck crunched onto the gravel road and she hesitated, pushing the brakes to the floor. _She’ll never forgive me if this works and she wasn’t here for it_ , Abbie thought. _Why I am I even doing this alone? Jenny is her ancestor too. And Crane is a Witness, same as I am. This is selfish._ All the times she helped Ichabod do something to save his past, his family, replayed in her mind. All the times those plans backfired replayed too. She hoped that, foolish as her plan seemed, nothing as bad as purgatorial dollhouses or vindictive grandpa-sons would come out of successfully restoring her petrified ancestor to flesh and blood. She took a slow breath. It had been a while since she’d done something selfish. She pressed the accelerator gently and half-hoped that the spell failed so she didn’t have to explain herself to Jenny.

 

 

The entrance chamber was warm. Soil and stone gave off a soft mustiness, but the draft from the open hatch stirred up stagnant air and Abbie soon smelled evidence of what she assumed was a decomposing gorgon body somewhere deeper in cavern. She brought along a handful of flares but the small work lights she invested in were going to be the most helpful. She positioned the flares around the room so she had plenty of sight-lines. The cavern wasn’t bright but was much easier to navigate now. _Mood lighting._ She chuckled to herself and the echoing laughter gave her a chill. Abbie spun in a slow circle, checking still-dark corners with her flashlight, straining her eyes just in case gorgons could grow back their heads like hydra. _You never know. Plenty of shit gets lost in translation. They probably aren’t the same monster but a month ago I didn’t think they existed at all._ She shook her head. _Crane has been going stir-crazy for nearly a month, practically praying that some boogeyman will jump out from his closet, and somehow I am the one back in the secret quest cave. What even is my life?_

Abbie moved tentatively towards where her ancestor stood and set down her heavy bag. She placed the bright but portable LED spotlights near the alcove where the statuesque woman rested and set to work pulling off the weeds and dust that spent decades swaddling her elder. She had fallen back against the wall, either in her fright upon seeing the monster or in someone else’s failed attempt to escape it; Abbie struggled a little to get her footing but she set her upright and proud. Regency dress or Victorian, Abbie couldn’t tell. A bonnet framed the woman’s face, what once was stiff cotton edged with delicate needlepoint now hard as granite. Her mouth was set in an O of shock; Abbie wondered if this lady looked anything like Mama when she smiled. The lantern she had dropped at her feet said Dixon so Abbie took it at its word. She had consulted the family tree and documents Lena Gilbert had forwarded on and the most likely identity of this woman was M Dixon, her maternal grandpa’s grandmother. Dates and names were patchy at best; she could be mistaken but the little documentation she could find seemed to confirm it. Abbie often tried to imagine what name would suit this brave woman, her great great grandma. Mary? Madeline? May? Nothing seemed good enough. She looked hungrily into the eyes of Great Nana Dixon, needing answers and comfort. _Why are we the ones, Nana? What do I need to do to make sure our family can stop? How many more sacrifices do they want from us?_

Housekeeping out of the way, Abbie dug back into her bag and pulled out Grace Dixon’s journal. She held it up to her petrified elder.

“This was your grandma’s, wasn’t it? Well, it was yours too I guess. That’s how it got to me.” She knelt on the ground and set the book in front of her. “I have no idea if this’ll work. But I feel I’ve got to try. Thank you for helping me get this far.”

She opened Grace’s journal, turning to the page she marked with a folded sheet of paper. She spread the paper flat and looked back and forth between two. On the left, in Grace’s elegant script, the components to a restorative spell; on the right, Corbin’s ballpoint scribblings indicating modern substitutions for ingredients once common but now scarce. She rummaged in her bag again and set to work.

Abbie sliced into a knob of ginger and chopped it finely before setting it into a small bowl. Then she did the same with the mandrake root but it being by far the largest ingredient, both by size and amount, took a good deal longer. Green cardamom was the next on the list but she could only get hold of black cardamom; she hoped it wouldn’t make a difference in the outcome. She sprinkled the seeds into the bowl with the chopped roots and began grinding the concoction with a pestle.

As she ground and smashed, the ginger tangy in the air, Abbie thought back to the family tree and how odd it was that each marriage produced only one child. She thought at first it may have been incomplete record keeping or Lena Gilbert overlooking a remarriage or a half-sibling for the sake of clarity. _Why the hell would Gilbert have a family tree that leads directly to Mama with no other branches?_ she had thought. But the pieces she managed to put together did indicate that Abbie and Jenny were the first siblings born on her mother’s side in a very long time. It was incredibly weird that generations went by and their forbears had only one child each, especially in a time where children were had by the half-dozen. _Is that why I’m the Witness and Jenny isn’t? Because I’m the first? Because I’m supposed to be the only? Leave it to Jenny to will herself into existence._ Abbie laughed under her breath. _Jenny may not have been Chosen, whatever that means, but she’s definitely supposed to be here._ Supposed to be here. Her stomach lurched as she realized that this might work and she’d have to take their great great grandma for her first car journey where she would meet Jenny. Abbie pushed the guilt from her mind; she hoped Jenny would be confused and pleased enough to forgive this error in judgement. Despite her sister’s intimidating, sometimes cynical, exterior, she had a lot of love to go around. A lump formed in Abbie’s throat as she realized that the likely reason her ancestors had only one child was that they didn’t live long enough to birth any others.

The spell in Grace’s journal said that it was for “reviving one suffering from catalepsy and catatonia” and provided modified instructions for the state being brought about by a hex as opposed to ill health. It said nothing about gorgons or statues but, after looking up the individual ingredients and seeing references to snake venom antidotes, Abbie figured it was worth a shot. She ran her fingers over the page, searching out the next step. Lavender. She took three sprigs of lavender and stripped the stems of the dried buds. Setting them aside, she reached back into her bag for the small plastic bottle she had filled with lake water. She read over Corbin’s notes for the umpteenth time; his research seemed to indicate that unless the use of sanctified or salt water was specified, any sort of water could be used for a spell. Abbie figured she could use tap water but something about the process of gathering water and algae and all sorts of microscopic life from the lake near Corbin’s cabin felt better. She did her best to ignore the likelihood of weird chemicals and toxins being in the water too. She poured a small amount into the bowl and mixed gently with the pestle. She poured and mixed until all the water had been incorporated into the roots and it formed a lumpy paste. Abbie picked up the lavender buds and sprinkled them into the paste with intent, first clockwise, then counterclockwise; she knew she knew nothing about what Grace did, about what her ancestors could do with this magic, but there was a deep muscle memory she couldn’t explain and a warm feeling in her gut that told her she wasn’t just making mud pies like when she was a kid.

A glance at the journal. A deep breath.

She stood, bowl in hand, and faced her ancestor. Using her thumb, Abbie smeared the paste reverentially down the center of her stony chest, across her belly, onto the palms of her hands and the tops of her feet. With the remaining mixture, she drew a small circle on Great Nana Dixon’s third eye and placed a smudge onto her own. Both women now anointed with earth and spice, she set down the bowl and fished out a lighter from her bag. The journal cited “my cousin, the obeahwoman” as being the source of this magic. Abbie wondered what her name was; maybe Grace left it out on purpose, in case the book fell into the wrong hands. The obeahwoman said to recite the spell while wafting smoke but no further details were given. Abbie had a small box of sandalwood incense that she liked to burn after she cleaned house or when she had a particularly hard day at the precinct. That would have to do. She lit a stick of incense and blew it out; the smoke drifted up in a tall, languid plume. The journal felt sturdy and comforting spread out in her open palm. She tried to ignore the shaking in her voice as she read out the incantation as best she could. Abbie traced the shape of her ancestor with the smoke, pushing the plume with her hand and her spirit.

Once. Twice. Thrice.

Abbie waited. She stared hard into the statue’s eyes, imploring them to show life once again. The tension built in her chest and she forced herself to wait, to hope a little longer. The incense smelled sweet. The cave smelled musty. The paste on her forehead had dried and was pulling gently at her skin. She wiped at her jaw with heel of her hand and her sleeve absorbed the tears that gathered there. Abbie allowed herself to exhale and a sob escaped. She knelt on the hard dirt and stuck the still-burning incense into the ground at her ancestor’s feet.


End file.
